Tuesday, April 21, 2015

THE ART DECO PACIFIC BELL TOWER - A SAN FRANCISCO LANDMARK

The 26-floor building was originally called the Pacific Telephone Building
when it was completed in 1925, and it was San Francisco's first
significant skyscraper development when construction began in 1924. The architect was Timothy L. Pflueger, partner in the firm Miller & Pflueger, at the time a rising star of San Francisco's architect community. For 44 years until 1978, the top of the roof was used to convey official storm warnings to sailors at the direction of the US Weather Bureau, in the form of a 25 foot long triangular red flag by day, and a red light at night.After years of standing vacant the edifice was restored and reborn as office space with Yelp as the main tenant. It has been renamed 140NM and is known by the philistines among as "the Yelp building".I photographed it for the owners Wilson Meany Sullivan.